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Veterans Museum hosts war speaker
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by Emily Clark
Friday, October 6, 2006
Campbell Craig, a professor at the University of Southampton in England, traveled across the pond to discuss the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings from President Harry Truman's perspective Thursday night.
Before a crowd at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, Craig said the two bombings in Japan marked separate milestones in American wars. Hiroshima, Craig said, denoted the end of World War II, and Nagasaki marked the beginning of the Cold War.
"The primary reason for the United States to have dropped the bombs, given the fact that alternatives were available, was not because the U.S. wanted to avoid having to invade Japan," Craig said, "but rather because the U.S. wanted to intimidate the Soviet Union — which is ultimately what triggered the Cold War."
The Hiroshima bombing, Craig added, was Truman's attempt to ensure Japanese surrender.
Throughout the week of Aug. 3, 1945 when the bombings began, Truman was not cold-hearted, according to Craig. Truman realized his decision to drop the second bomb was a unique act — one that the U.S. did not necessarily want to be associated with, he added.
Putting the moral argument aside, Craig concluded that the purpose of the second bombing was solely as a factor of intimidation toward the Soviet Union.
Craig's lecture, which was part of the University of Wisconsin's Distinguished Lecture Series, served to educate students and academics on a variety of opinions concerning the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.
UW senior Peter Rusch said he partly chose to attend the lecture because oftentimes studying the past is the best way to prepare for the future.
"I'm in a military ethics class right now, and this is relevant to the topic," Rusch said. "Studying decisions in the past, how they were reached and the consequences of them, is the best way for military leaders of the future to be prepared to make ethical decisions."
A variety of facts and viewpoints were discussed in the forum that immediately followed the lecture.
"I believe it is exceedingly important for academics to communicate their ideas to an audience besides other academics," Craig said. "Otherwise, it basically becomes a discussion among like-minded people."
